Footballers accuse referee of talking like a footballer to a referee

Chelsea players have accused referee Mark Clattenburg of talking to them as if he was a Chelsea player addressing a referee.

Clattenburg is alleged to have attempted to use the footballers’ own language in an attempt to communicate with them during Chelsea’s loss to Manchester United on Sunday.

A spokesperson for the West London side explained, “There is a very clear dynamic in professional football, and that is players giving officials dogs abuse, and officials just standing there impotently taking it.”

“If a referee wanted to swear angrily at people on the pitch, then they should have become footballers themselves.”

“These players train for years to reach the point where they can scream obscenities at officials in front of millions of people on television – yet he thinks he can just rock up and start giving it the verbals. No. Not acceptable.”

“We want him strung up.”

Clattenburg complaint

Chelsea have denied that the accusations stem from the fact they lost yesterday’s game, and that verbally abusive referees are a real threat to the modern game.

Manager Roberto Di Matteo explained, “This has absolutely nothing to do with us losing the game in controversial circumstances.”

“We would definitely still be complaining if we’d won. We’ve got players in tears in the dressing room, they simply haven’t been exposed to this sort of language before.”

“One of my players reckons Clattenburg even dropped the f-bomb. This will take a while to recover from, and the counselling bill alone could run into the thousands.”